Is there a shift in the Puget Sound food web?

A Seattle Times story features a recent paper in the Marine Ecology Press Series about shifting baselines in the Puget Sound food web. Forty years of data from the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife reveal a trend toward more jellyfish and less of some forage fish species in the region. High amounts of jellyfish can mean a decline in ecosystem productivity, according to scientists. The original paper was based on some of the same data used by Puget Sound Institute researchers looking at trends for Puget Sound’s Pacific herring populations.